5 Games That Bring Dinosaurs to the Tabletop

Given the recent propensity for model-heavy board games, dinosaurs remain a relatively underused theme in the hobby. But it’s not like there is no interest there as two of the titles on this list pulled in a combined $537,000 on Kickstarter over the last year and a half. With our favourite ‘terrible lizards’ so underrepresented in the tabletop scene, we thought we’d take a look at some of the titles that are currently on the market, along with one that is expected to hit shelves in the near future.

5. Smash Up by AEG

At this point, it’s hard to name a faction that hasn’t appeared in AEG’s entertaining deck builder Smash Up, but dinosaurs have the honour of being one of the original eight in the core set. The game’s premise is fairly straight forward and sees players choose two of the game’s factions and combining their unique cards into one playable deck. Each faction has its own style of play, allowing players to bring entirely new decks to each game. The goal is to score victory points by playing cards at different locations. Each creature played on a location adds its power to the base’s total and when the base’s breaking point is reached, points are awarded based on the total strength of creatures each player has there.

The dinosaurs’ faction deck leans heavily on brute force and features the core game’s strongest card in King Rex. At 7 power he’s easily able to turn the tide of most confrontations. Of course, this all out attack approach leaves the dinosaurs lacking when it comes to being tricky and conniving. The Armor Stego card does nearly double in power on an opponent’s turn, while War Raptors gain a boost when played in packs but it’s all ultimately done in your turn, allowing opponents to react to what the dinosaurs are doing. Fortunately, as mentioned above, the dinos have the power to score a base alone, leaving unprepared opponents in their wake.

4. Firefly Games

“Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!” you may think, “Firefly has nothing to do with dinosaurs,” and you’d be right. However, the brief appearance of Wash’s toy dinosaurs at the beginning of Episode One has ensured them a place in many of the series’ licensed products, and tabletop games are no different. In Firefly Fluxx for instance, the toy dinosaurs have their own Keeper card necessary for the completion of some of the game’s Goals, while the official Firefly board game features a Stegosaurus token to designate the active player. The latter game earns bonus dino points for recommending that you replace the token with a model dinosaur of your own, and we’ll take any excuse to bring out our toy dinosaurs! Of course, the main focus of these games is the Firefly universe itself, but it goes to show the pervading awesomeness of dinosaurs that they remain an iconic element of the cult space western.

3. The Great Dinosaur Rush by APE Games

Okay, so the last two entries looked at games that featured dinosaurs, but this one sees them take centre stage. APE Games’ immensely enjoyable The Great Dinosaur Rush sees players take on the role of a museum curator fighting to display the very best dinosaur skeletons. Of course, dinosaur bones don’t just grow on trees so they’ll have to send out palaeontologists to gather the required pieces to finish their exhibit. Over the course of three rounds, players take turns at gathering bones, attempting to wow prospective patrons and otherwise ensure that their exhibits are the biggest draw. The rounds conclude with players using the bones they’ve collected to assemble a skeleton of their own design, attempting to score points based on the characteristics audiences would most like to see. Bonus points are awarded if a player can include features from actual dinosaurs (e.g. Stegosaurus‘ plates or Triceratops‘ horns) which can be found on bonus cards dealt to them.

What really stands out about The Great Dinosaur Rush is the attention to detail that has been put into the dinosaur aspect of the game. While creating your skeletons is great fun in its own right, the title features nice little facts about dinosaurs along with some of the most prominent names in the field of dinosaur discovery. The Mary Anning card for instance reveals,

A prolific fossil hunter, Anning found her first fossil, an icthyosaur, at age 12. She discovered one of the first and most complete pterodactyls and was the inspiration for the tongue-twister, ‘She sells seashells by the seashore’

whilst the Dryosaurus card informs that, “This swift herbivore was found in the Morrison Formation, which was the battleground of the Great Dinosaur Rush. It had a horned beak with teeth.” When it comes to board games, this one is a definite must-play for dino-lovers.

2. Jurassic World Monopoly by Hasbro

Love it or hate it, Monopoly is one of the most well known board games around. It’s recent foray into licensed editions has, of course seen it release a Jurassic World version, but that’s only part of the reason the game makes this list. Back in March, Hasbro released the results of an online poll in which people were asked to vote for the playing pieces that they’d most like to see boxed in the standard game of Monopoly. Of all the pieces available, the T. rex received the second highest amount of votes, ensuring that going forward a miniature tyrannosaur will feature in everyone’s love-to-hate board game. Of course, the Scottie Dog easily topped the poll, but I’m sure we can give our canine chums this one after that scene in Jurassic Park: The Lost World.

1. Dinosaur Island by Pandasaurus Games

This worker placement game from Pandasaurus Games has yet to be released but, after bringing in over half a million on Kickstarter, it certainly has us excited. Boasting enviable credentials (designers of Dead of Winter and Titans of Industry), Dinosaur Island will challenge players to do everything that John Hammond couldn’t, and create a functioning dinosaur theme park. They’ll have to research dino-DNA and combine it in the correct sequence in order to bring the extinct giants back to life. But as we’ve seen before, bringing dinosaurs into the modern era is a recipe for disaster and the game’s Kickstarter campaign questions;

“Do you go big and create a pack of Velociraptors? They’ll definitely excite potential guests… but you better make a large enough enclosure for them. And maybe hire some (read: a lot of) security. Or they WILL break out and start eating your guests—and we all know how that ends. You could play it safe and grow a bunch of herbivores… but then you aren’t going to have the most exciting park in the world (sad face). So maybe buy a roller coaster or two to try and attract guests to your park the good old fashioned way?”

To make things even more spectacular, Dinosaur Island has been designed with a very much ’90s styling. Everything about the game screams, “We Love Jurassic Park!” and we certainly can’t wait to get in on the action.

So there you have it, just some of the tabletop games on the market that feature our dinosaur friends. Did we leave out an obvious entry, or is there a little known gem that we really should play? Let us know in the comments.

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About The Author

Avid reader and occasional reviewer, as well as player of all things table top. I've hosted events for Table Top Day in Drogheda in 2015, 2016 and 2017. If you ask nicely I'll tell you why Aquaman is the greatest superhero around.